National Post, July 8, 2004

Resorts and Revolution
by Isabel Vincent

CAYO COCO, Cuba - At the end of every week, the Cuban entertainers and
lifeguards working at one of the largest resorts on this picture-postcard
island north of the Cuban mainland gather in plastic kiddy chairs around a
miniature picnic table to divide their tips -- usually toiletries and other
consumer goods left behind by visitors.
It's part of the Cuban conundrum, the charade that allows the government of
Fidel Castro to profit from Western-style holiday resorts without abandoning
its Communist principles. Although resort employers pay good wages, the
Cuban workers never get to see any but a small fraction. The government
takes the rest, saying it is needed to fund social programs.
In a country where even the most basic consumer items are in short supply,
this leaves the workers competing for the leftovers of oblivious tourists.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, after two busloads of European and Canadian
tourists had left for the airport, the picnic table -- part of the resort's
club for children -- was covered with six bottles of Finesse shampoo, five
bars of Irish Spring soap with aloe, a Revlon lipstick in a muted shade of
pink, several hair bands, a package of bobbypins and a pair of tweezers.
"I want the lipstick -- you guys can keep the shampoo," said one of the
entertainers, a tall mixed-race young woman sporting a ponytail, white
Reeboks and the red tennis skirt and white T-shirt that identified her as
part of the hotel's entertainment troupe.
Her remarks caused some consternation. Some of the other women -- there were
six in all -- made their own cases for the lipstick in rapid-fire Cuban
slang. But after a lengthy deliberation, which involved all the contenders
daubing the lipstick on their hands to test the colour against their
complexions, Ponytail Woman won. She quickly pocketed the lipstick, while
the others shared out the soap, shampoo and other items.
Tipping, whether in U.S. dollars or toiletries or clothing, is considered
one of the greatest perks for those Cubans lucky enough to work in tourism,
the island's fastest-growing industry.
This year, about two million tourists -- more than 400,000 of them
Canadian -- are expected to visit the Caribbean island, injecting more than
US$2-billion into government coffers.
Many of the visitors are aware of the situation and do their best to help.
"Every time I come to Cuba, I always bring extra shampoo and old clothes,"
said Lisa, an accountant from Guelph, Ont., who has been vacationing here
for the last three years. "People have next to nothing here, and they really
appreciate anything you give them."
Even though tourism is the country's most important industry, the Cuban
hotel and resort workers earn substantially the same as compatriots in the
general labour force. However, their perks and working conditions are among
the best on the island, where such luxuries as air-conditioning are usually
reserved for high-ranking Communist party officials or foreign branch
plants.
The tourism workers make the equivalent of US$14 a month, plus tips, serving
people intent on enjoying themselves and often with little understanding of
their situation.
Typical is Eddie from Toronto.
"Hey, that's a lot of money here," said the retired construction worker, who
was sitting at the bar in a four-star hotel drinking beer.
"What do you need money for in Cuba? Everything's paid for. Everyone knows
the government gives out food and medicine. Fidel Castro takes care of his
people."
He's right up to a point. Although the government subsidizes food and other
necessities, shortages and rationing are common. Cubans are prohibited from
hunting, fishing or planting extra crops for personal use.
Slaughtering a cow could result in a jail term of up to 15 years. This is
because all cows and livestock belong to the Cuban government. As Havana
sees it, anyone who kills a cow without permission is acting like a private
entrepreneur, illegally profiting from the sale of the meat.
And although health care is universal, common medications are hard to find
or only available on the black market. Aspirin can usually be bought at
dollar stores, which also sell cooking oil, toiletries, and other products
in short supply. But access to these government-operated establishments is
restricted to those with U.S. dollars, not Cuban pesos.
This forces many Cubans to beg tourists for Aspirin and antibiotics. It has
also led some pro-Cuban groups to suggest tourists bring along suitcases of
medications.
"You got tetra?," asked Jimmy, a a teenager in Moron, a 16th-century town of
70,000 in central Cuba. He was referring to tetracycline, which is only
available on the black market.
It's a scene Cuban government officials probably don't want tourists to see.
This may explain the high cost of independent travel outside the guarded
resort compounds. For instance, a trip to Ciego de Avila, about an hour's
drive from Cayo Coco, costs more than US$100 in a government-operated taxi.
"Why do you want to go there?" asked David, the earnest driver as he steered
his battered Hyundai over potholed highways past dozens of Cubans waiting
under a blistering sun to hitch rides on the backs of trucks, and neatly
painted factories with signs that read "Inaugurated by Che."
Most of the Cayo Coco resort workers, including David, share crumbling
colonial houses or Soviet-style apartment blocks with their extended
families in and around the city of 150,000.
On the city's outskirts is a compound surrounded by razor wire and armed
guards. According to some reports, the Cuban Ministry of the Interior runs a
jail here that may house some of the 75 dissidents detained last year.
"That's not for tourists," said David, who launched into a long lecture on
the men he called "the five Cuban brothers" recently jailed in the United
States on espionage charges. Cuba is full of posters of the five, who were
caught spying at a military compound in Florida several years ago.
"We ask for a fair trial in a place other than Miami," say the posters,
which feature the addresses of the convicted men in jails throughout the
United States. "Be with us in this crusade for justice and against
terrorism."
Havana's call for justice and due process seems ironic, given the fact Cuba
has been roundly condemned by the international community for jailing
opposition members and journalists without due process.
"It's not the same thing," said David. "These dissidents in Cuba were
working with American terrorists against the Cuban people."
Like all Cubans who work with foreigners, David was handpicked by the
government.
The island's resorts and hotels are jointly operated by the government and
foreign companies from Germany, Spain, Mexico, France and Canada. All the
workers are supplied by an agency controlled by Cubanacan, a commercial
enterprise belonging to the island's armed forces.
Typically, foreign companies pay the employment agency a monthly wage of
about US$450 a worker, plus a 25% payroll tax.
"The employment agency pays the workers a salary in Cuban pesos that is
comparable to the national average for that type of work as determined by
the Labour Ministry," says a recent report on foreign investment in Cuba in
the George Washington Law Review.
"Thus, each mechanic receives about 200 pesos per month, a sales
representative receives 300 pesos per month, and the general manager
receives 400 pesos per month."
Last month in Cuba, US$1 was equivalent to 27 pesos.
Some foreign employers supplement the salaries of their Cuban workers with
bonuses to try and give them a living wage, although the government says
these can only be paid for overtime.
At El Senador, the island's only resort complex jointly operated by
Canadians and Cubans, workers receive part of the hotel's profits, an
unusual arrangement in a regime that frowns on free-market ventures.
"We cannot declare the exact percentage that they receive, but they receive
each month a portion of the gross operating profit of the hotel," said Andre
Desbien, who works for the consortium Thibeau, Messier, Savard & Associates,
a Montreal-based firm run by hockey legends Serge Savard and Mark Messier.
The company operates El Senador in an equal partnership with the Cuban
government.
Mr. Desbien would not discuss the negotiations that led to the
profit-sharing arrangement.
"You cannot generalize about the employment practices of foreign companies
here," he said. "In our case, we fought to have as many incentives for
workers to do a good job. And they do a great job, because they really feel
that this is their hotel."
The hotel complex, which was opened in 2001, employs 437 Cubans, for which
the Montreal firm pays the government US$723 a worker a month. This also
covers workers' health benefits, food and transportation to and from the
hotel.
Mr. Desbien would not disclose workers' take-home pay. "You cannot
generalize like that here. It depends on each worker and the different work
they do."
Other foreign hotel operators are similarly close-mouthed about their
arrangements with the government, which picks workers more for their
allegiance to the revolutionary principles than for work skills and
experience.
"Workers are selected for incorporation into the pool on the basis of their
'moral qualities' as much as, if not more than, their ability to perform the
required work tasks," said Matias Travieso-Diaz and Charles Trumbull,
authors of the George Washington study.
Havana says most of the money it collects from hiring out workers to foreign
companies goes to pay for universal health care.
But international observers are unimpressed. The International Labour
Organization and Human Rights Watch say Cuban labour practices involving
joint venture operations are exploitative.
In addition, the workers are denied fundamental rights. They cannot form
unions and risk losing their jobs if they complain about working conditions.
"They do not have the freedoms that workers in other countries have, even
those working under poor labour conditions," says the George Washington
study.
"Cuban workers in joint ventures are dependent on the state. The state
decides who will do what work, how much the worker will be paid, and how
long the worker will work. The state rewards those who are loyal to the
state and punishes those who are not."
Abdiel Hernandez, former assistant entertainment manager at a large resort
on the island, agrees.
"When you are in the tourism sector you have to pretend to sympathize with
the Revolution," said Mr. Hernandez, who left Cuba seven years ago and now
lives in Toronto where he has a regular Spanish-language radio show.
Generally, there are two kinds of security at Cuban resorts: guards watching
the workers and guards watching the tourists (these also have the task of
keeping ordinary Cubans out of the resorts).
The security forces in charge of Cuban workers spend most of their time
monitoring the theft of food from hotel kitchens and ensuring the workers
are not engaging in prostitution with foreign clients. In the past few years
the government has cracked down on prostitution in hotels and resorts.
Today, the trade is practised more discreetly, and workers regularly bribe
security guards to look the other way, said Mr. Hernandez, who recently
returned to the resort where he used to work.
"Prostitution still goes on, especially among the entertainers and other
frontline workers who have a lot of contact with the tourists," he said.
The resorts are off-limits to most ordinary Cubans, and security guards in
black trousers, neatly pressed white cotton shirts and walkie-talkies are
ubiquitous on the beaches. A chamber maid at one resort says they also
ensure Cubans do not leave the island.
Any workers caught telling guests about their lives outside the hotel are
dealt with harshly, Mr. Hernandez said.
Back at the children's club, the entertainment workers packed up their
shampoo, soap and other tips. Ponytail Woman applied a fresh coat of
lipstick as she prepared to greet a new busload of tourists.

© National Post 2004

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